Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin established the conference in 1963 as a private gathering of about 60 participants. He was a resistance fighter from the Stauffenberg circle who hoped to prevent future military conflicts like the Second World War.
The conference has been held annually in February at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich, Bavaria, Germany since its inception. The venue remains the Hotel Bayerischer Hof where these intensive debates on current security challenges take place annually.
Wolfgang Ischinger assumed leadership in 2008 after Horst Teltschik served for ten years. Ischinger transformed the event into a non-profit company called Munich Security Conference GmbH in 2011.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Western nations about abandoning appeasement toward Moscow five days before the Russian invasion began in February 2022. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared the world was in a more precarious security situation than during the Cold War during the 58th conference in 2022.
The 60th conference in 2024 hosted almost 1,000 participants from 109 countries with 45 heads of state and government present. More than half of the speakers at that event were female while over a quarter represented countries of the Global South.